Rupert Murdoch received a face-to-face briefing from Scotland Yard over an ongoing anti-terror operation, the Standard can reveal.

Former deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke met the media tycoon with Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, then editors of The Sun and the News of the World, in 2004.

Both journalists have since been arrested and bailed on suspicion of phone-hacking.

The senior police officer, acting under former Met commissioner Lord Stevens, met the News International executives to warn them of a “dirty” bomb plot that detectives had uncovered.It is understood the case involved plans to target hotels and transport networks in Britain and the US.

Mr Clarke, 56, was trying to open back channels to key media executives and warn them of Scotland Yard’s struggles against Islamist terrorism.

However former Met police chief Brian Paddick, who is Lib-Dem candidate for London Mayor, said: “It is one thing to brief editors on current issues of national security. It is quite another to brief Rupert Murdoch on a very important legal case that is still sub judice.”

News International declined to comment. A Met spokesman said: “It is standard practice to brief all media on a range of operations.”

Before he took charge of counter-terrorism, Mr Clarke played a significant role in the original phone-hacking investigation in 2006, when Scotland Yard seized 11,000 pages of evidence from private detective Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the News of the World.

At the time, officers briefed Ms Brooks that there were more than 100 phone-hacking victims and that the defunct Sunday tabloid had paid Mulcaire almost £1 million.